[gmueckl]

This isn't going to happen simply because it would introduce enormous strategic vulnerabilities. The first act ina war would be to sever an opponent's grid connections to their neighbors because that would massively erode their ability to maintain an orderly civil society.

[dredmorbius]

We've lived in a geopolitical world since Britain converted its navy from coal to oil prior to WWI, making itself dependent on Middle East oil (the UK didn't realise its North Sea reserves until the 1960s, they weren't developed until the 1970s/80s, contributing hugely to the Thatcher boom). Choke-points of oil exporters (particularly Iran, OPEC), pipelines (TAPLINE), canals (Suez, Panama, etc.), straits (Hormouz, Malacca, etc.) have all been at the centre of global geopolitics for well over a century.

Solar changes the who and where, but really not the what significantly. Solar is far more distributed and less concentrated, and options for distribution are potentially more diverse (cables, direct power beaming, synfuel production and distribution) in ways that an oil-based economy hasn't been.

Even within national borders, power production and distribution are sufficiently centralised and choke-pointed that they are vulnerable to significant disruption, even by non-targeted accidents and natural disasters. Major national and regional power outages are not especially frequent, but neither are they unfamiliar: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_power_outages>.

During periods of conflict, national and irregular forces routinely target power infrastructure, with significant but rarely absolutely crippling effect. For the past three-and-some years, two major eastern-European adversaries have been directly targeting one anothers' energy infrastructure. Though the results are costly, neither has been bombed back to the stone age, or even the pre-electrical era:

"Resilience Under Fire: How Ukraine’s Energy Sector is Adapting – and What It Means for Europe"

<https://rasmussenglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/REPOR...> (PDF)

[thelastgallon]

This won't happen because the lines are bi-directional. It would be like chopping off their own energy supply. Because of the Earth's rotation, neighbors can take advantage of each other's sunlight. Parts of Europe and North Africa's energy markets are already working on this.

For the past 100+ years, the US has been spending a significant amount of money on protecting oil supplies to protect its oil billionaires and its economy. It's the #1 budget item, outspending the combined military spending of the next 10 economies. This can be reduced to zero, and ultimately, the $ 39 trillion deficit can be eliminated.

[gmueckl]

Bidirectional powerlines make the grid more stable for tha larger region around most countries because it makes it easier to route around the conflict as far as capacities permit. Not many countries span coast to coast in a way that couldn't be routed around. So that would actually increase the vulnerability of individual countries.

The EU is actually extremely special because its souvereign member states collaborate in almost all areas on a level that is unmatched anywhere else. But the ideological foundation is getting eroded by propaganda and if that assault is effective, Europe will balcanize again and end up experiencing many more armed conflicts.

[aiono]

Or if everyone depends on another maybe we will not go into a war with each other.

[adwn]

People believed this before. Then WW1 happened. 100 years later, people forgot the lessons of the past, and believed this again. Then Russia invaded Ukraine.

[no_wizard]

If Ukraine was part of NATO it wouldn’t have happened I am willing to bet.

Most in depth analysis I’ve seen of these Russia - Ukraine conflicts cite this as one of the top factors in why Russia invaded both a decade ago and the most recent war that is ongoing.

That is to say - mutual cooperation agreements like that have enough teeth to keep conflicts to a minimum as the repercussions are severe

Also another ultimate irony is that Russia didn’t completely cut the rest of Europe off from its oil and gas. That symbiosis continues albeit not the same way. Perhaps electricity would be the same

[tintor]

Well, power dependencies would be uni-directional, not bi-directional.